Market report

By ANDREW OXLADE, COLUMNIST
Updated:

 

FEARS that terrorists may be behind the latest aircraft crash in New York sparked a mass sell-off of stocks across Europe. But prices partially recovered as traders waited for more news on the cause.

The FTSE 100 was down 81.9 points at 5162.3 at 3.40pm. Earlier it had been down 170 points or more than 3%. Wall Street was down 168.8 points - or 1.8% - at 9440.2.

Jeremy Batstone of NatWest Stockbokers said: 'The markets are reacting in a justifiably restrained way - they want to know the exact cause of this crash.

'If it does emerge that it was a terrorist attack then expectations for the timing of the global economic recovery may have to be put back again but that's no reason to expect mass selling.'

The beleaguered airlines sector was obviously hard hit, with British Airways down 7% at 161p. But the stock had been down 13% earlier. Meanwhile Air France slipped 3% on the Paris stock exchange.

UK insurance stocks were also on the slide. Legal & General was down just 2p at 161p, but Royal Sun Alliance was 3.5% lower at 374p and CGNU was off 2.5% at 845p.

The UK's large clearing banks also came off badly with Royal Bank of Scotland down 3% at 1619p and HSBC fell 2.3% to 774 1/2p.

Technology companies, which have been recently been edging up on hope of economic recovery, were also under pressure with chip designer ARM down 13p at 369p and IT consultancy Logica 27p - or 3% - lower at 821p.

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